The Scout Report

October 16, 1998

A Publication of the Internet Scout Project
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Scout Report is a weekly publication offering a selection of new and newly discovered Internet resources of interest to researchers and educators. However, everyone is welcome to subscribe to one of the mailing lists (plain text or HTML). Subscription instructions are included at the end of each report.

An Acrobat .pdf version of this report is available for printing and distributing locally. For information on Adobe Acrobat Reader, visit the Adobe site.

Scout Report for Science & Engineering
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/sci-engr/
Volume 2, Number 3 of the Scout Report for Science & Engineering is available. It annotates over twenty new and newly discovered Internet resources in the physical & life sciences and engineering. The In the News section annotates nine resources on the recent finding of distant galaxies by the Hubble Space Telescope. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

TAY (Archeological Settlements of Turkey) Project
http://tayproject.eies.itu.edu.tr/enghome.html
This ambitious project is the first, and currently only, culture/settlement inventory of an entire country on the Internet. The TAY project was begun in 1993 "to build a chronological inventory of findings about the cultural heritage of Turkey." TAY accomplishes this mission by locating, identifying, and protecting archaeological sites, as well as providing a huge data pool and scientific reference base for researchers and students. The information is offered in a database located on the site. Currently, only the first section (Palaeolithic/ Epipalaeolithic) is available, but the Neolithic section is promised to be added soon. The Palaeolithic/ Epipalaeolithic section is searchable by a number of variables and contains information on 212 discovered sites. Search returns include an overview of the site (location, geography and environment, research and stratigraphy, and finds) as well as of maps and drawings. The site is also available in Turkish. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC): On-line Particle Physics Information
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/library/pdg/
The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) Library provides this electronic "guide," which organizes and annotates online databases, Webpages, catalogs, and directories that are of value to the particle physics community. Online resources are categorized by data, collaborations and experiments, conferences, current awareness services, five different directories (for research institutions, libraries, etc.), online scientific papers and journals, four types of educational sites, and software directories. Within each section, links to outside databases and Internet sites direct users to additional resources on particle physics. [KH]
[Back to Contents]

International Dunhuang Project (IDP) Interactive Database
http://idp.bl.uk/
The IDP was founded in 1994 to coordinate efforts among holders, conservators, and researchers of material from Dunhuang, a Buddhist library cave discovered in 1900 near the Silk Road oasis town of Dunhuang on the edge of the Gobi Desert. This new online database from the British Library is both a catalog and image bank, containing text details of over 20,000 pre-eleventh-century manuscripts in Chinese, Tibetan, and other Central Asian languages, and images of over 1,000 of the documents. Free registration is required, and users may recall details from previous searches. Users may search the database by languages and scripts, document form, site, and subject. The database is also designed to be interactive, allowing scholars to submit comments and details of their own research. Other resources at the site include instructions for accessing the manuscripts at the British Library, a bibliography, past issues of the IDP newsletter, and an annotated collection of links. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

JAMA Women's Health Information Center
http://www.ama-assn.org/special/womh/womh.htm
The Women's Health Information Center, offered by editors of JAMA: the Journal of the American Medical Association (AMA), provides the latest research and clinical information on women's health issues for physicians and other health professionals. A Newsline section features current stories from Reuters Health Information and special reports from Morbidity, Mortality and Weekly Reports (MMWR) which may be read in HTML or downloaded as .pdf files. The Library section features full text of selected articles on women's health issues and abstracts of articles recently published in medical journals. For the latest information on sexually transmitted diseases or contraceptive issues, visit the STD Information Center or the Contraception Information Center, each of which features the latest news, patient education materials, clinical guidelines for treatment, recommended Internet resources, and abstracts and full-text reports on the latest research. [GW]
[Back to Contents]

PBS TeacherSource
http://www.pbs.org/teachersource/
PBS recently debuted this site for educators to help them plan their lessons and more easily access resources on television and the Web. Station schedules (with listings for local stations) are combined with lesson plans and online exercises for students to make this a sort of one-stop site. Resources include lesson plans that are correlated to select state and national curriculum standards, activities, and guides for teachers; these are organized into six major subject areas. Visitors can search by keyword or by selecting a subject or grade level from a pulldown menu. Teachers can subscribe to PBS Teacher Previews for updates on PBS's programming, Website, and other services. Links to additional related resources and a bibliography are provided. [JR]
[Back to Contents]

Clerk of the House Election Statistics [.pdf]
http://clerkweb.house.gov/histrecs/history/elections/elections.htm
The Office of the Clerk of the US House of Representatives has been publishing official statistics for federal elections since 1920. However, many of these statistical documents have been out of print for several years. To make this valuable information readily available to students and researchers, the Clerk of the House has provided all previously published federal election statistics on the Web. At this site, biennial election data from 1920 to 1996 can be viewed in .pdf format. Data for the last three federal elections are also available as HTML files. Each file contains vote counts from every state and territory in the US for congressional and presidential elections. [AO]
[Back to Contents]

Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation [frames]
http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/liu/palinurus/index2.html
This pilot site, maintained by Professor Alan Liu of the University of California-Santa Barbara, author of the Voice of the Shuttle site (described in the Scout Report for May 30, 1997), was created by humanities scholars to examine the practical and intellectual challenges faced by higher education in a post-industrial world. In today's "information society," "knowledge work" in the business and academic worlds have begun to merge. As any tenured or aspiring academic will tell you, pressures on university departments to downsize and restructure have never been greater, and academia now ignores the lessons and laws of the business world at its own peril. This site reflects on these issues through a hypertext linked bibliography of Suggested Readings, Featured Controversies (Grade Inflation, Faculty Against IT, and others), and in the future, plans to link resources and courses "relevant to the role of higher education in contemporary society." The Discussion Topics and Gallery of Quotes sections offer suggestions on using the bibliography and a Discussion Board is provided for user responses. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 1998--NCES
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/safety/index.html
.pdf Version
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/safety/98251.pdf
Released on October 13, this report is the first in an annual series on school crime and safety from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It offers data on different aspects of school crime and safety and describes victim characteristics. The report consists of five sections: Nonfatal Student Victimization--Student Reports; Violence and Crime at School--Public School Principal/Disciplinarian Reports; Violent Deaths at School; Nonfatal Teacher Victimization at School--Teacher Reports; and School Environment; as well as highlights and several appendices. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

1998 Nobel Peace Prize
http://www.nobel.se/announcement-98/peace98.html
1998 Nobel Prizes
http://www.nobel.se/announcement-98/
Over the past week, the Nobel Foundation has announced the winners of its 1998 prizes, beginning with the Prize for Literature on October 8 and culminating with the Peace Prize this morning. This year's Peace Prize was awarded to John Hume and David Trimble "for their efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland." A list of the winners and summaries of their accomplishments in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Medicine (described in the Scout Report for Science and Engineering for October 14, 1998), Economics, and Literature are available from the main site. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

The Funding of Political Parties in the United Kingdom [.pdf]
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm40/4057/4057.htm
Contents Page
http://www.official-documents.co.uk/document/cm40/4057/contents.htm
On October 13, the Committee on Standards in Public Life released their long awaited report on the regulation of party political funding and expenditure in the UK. Chaired by Lord Neill of Bladen QC, the Committee recommended the most radical changes in British political party spending in over 100 years. The report contains 100 recommendations ranging from the institution of a 20 million pound maximum spending limit on general elections, to the establishment of an independent Election Commission, to implementing tax breaks to encourage ordinary citizens to contribute to parties in order to wean parties from their reliance on large contributors and corporations. The report has immediately received cross-party support, and its main findings may become law by next Autumn. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages
http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/
Lecturer at the Sinological Institute of Leiden, the Netherlands, and avid Chinese poster collector (he claims to have about 1,000) Stefan R. Landsberger offers this attractive on-line exhibition. Propaganda, a traditionally important element in Chinese political culture, was perhaps developed to new heights by the Communist Party in China after 1949. This was especially evident in the almost universal use of posters to impart and reinforce correct ideology and behavior. Landsberger's site examines several topics explored by propaganda posters, such as the future and development of China (Visualizing the Future), the role of women (Iron Women and Foxy Ladies), the New Year Print, and the Hong Kong Handover. Each section features a number of nicely digitized posters and commentary tracing changes in the art of the propaganda poster since the 1940s. Additional resources at the site include a bibliography and related links. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

New Images from Hubble and Galileo
Hubble Finds Many Bright Clouds on Uranus [.jpeg, .pdf, .tiff]
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/35/index.html
Hubble Provides A Moving Look At Neptune's Stormy Disposition [.jpeg, .pdf, Quicktime]
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1998/34/index.html
Galileo: New Images
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/sepo/atjup/newim.html
NASA has recently released a number of new images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Galileo Project. Hubble has discovered about twenty orange-colored clouds near the prominent bright band of Uranus which circle the planet at more than 300 mph. The site offers a press release and images in several formats. Simultaneous observations at Hubble and NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii have also provided glimpses into Neptune's huge storms and equatorial winds of 900 mph. The site provides a press release, images, and a Quicktime animation. Finally, the Galileo Project has posted new images of Lightning & Water Clouds on Jupiter, Aurorae & HOT volcanoes on Io, Cratering on Callisto, and More on Europa. Press releases and science abstracts are provided. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Van Gogh's Van Goghs: Masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam at the National Gallery of Art [LivePicture Viewer]
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/vginfo.htm
Seventy paintings by Vincent van Gogh from the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam are now on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. To complement the exhibition, the National Gallery provides this informative Website, with information on obtaining passes, the exhibition brochure, Van Gogh programs at the Gallery, press releases, online purchase of the exhibition catalog, and links to additional works by Van Gogh in the Gallery's permanent collection. You can also take a virtual tour of the exhibition, an attractive option, since all of the advance passes for the show have already been distributed. The virtual tour uses a plug-in called LivePicture Viewer (also used for the Gallery's virtual Calder exhibition (described in the Scout Report for July 3, 1998), to allow virtual tourists to move through rooms in the museum and zoom-in on individual pictures. The Gallery plans to make a version without the plug-in available in the near future. [DS]
[Back to Contents]

The National Elder Abuse Incidence Study: Final Report (AOA)
http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/abuse/report/default.htm
.pdf Version
http://www.aoa.dhhs.gov/abuse/report/main-pdf.htm
Prepared for the Administration on Aging (AOA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this distressing and important report estimates that at least 500,000 older persons were abused and/or neglected, or experienced self-neglect during 1996, the study period. This, the first ever National Elder Abuse Incidence Study, also estimates that for every report of abuse or neglect, five go unreported. The site offers an Introduction, the full text of the Findings, Background, Study Design and Methods, and Conclusions. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

Wall of Sound Top 100 Albums [RealPlayer]
http://wallofsound.go.com/features/stories/top_100_albums/
Wall of Sound
http://wallofsound.go.com/
Wall of Sound, a music news and review site, has recently polled users on the ten best albums of the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. Over 400,000 votes were received, and Wall of Sound has compiled lists by decade and a list of the top 100 Albums of All Time. To create the final list, Wall of Sound ranked each album based on the percentage of total votes it received within its decade. Any such list is bound to produce disagreement, and this one offers some predictable results (the Beatles have two of the top five), and perhaps a few surprises (The Police, Nirvana, and U2 all appear in the top ten). The site lists the complete 100, the top 25 by decade, and the top write-ins by decade. A capsule review and RealPlayer sample is provided for each. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

BullsEye 1.0 and BullsEye Pro 1.0
http://www.IntelliSeek.com/
BullsEye and BullsEye Pro, created by IntelliSeek, Inc., are two of the most powerful and feature-packed Internet search tools available today. Among the features of these products is the ability to search multiple Web-based search engines simultaneously, combine the results, and refilter the results using more powerful queries. BullsEye Pro also allows these results to be checked periodically for changes in content and generates a report on those changes which can be viewed or sent via email. Beyond a standard Web search, BullsEye provides a number of specific categories within which users can search: news, books, usenet/discussion lists, and more. BullsEye unquestionably provides more search capabilities than most extant search services; however, these capabilities also cause it to be difficult to understand and master. BullsEye is an excellent searching tool for the technically savvy searcher who wants better and more effective means of finding information than current services. BullsEye 1.0 is available for $49 and BullsEye Pro 1.0 may be used freely for 30 days, after which time it can be purchased for $149. Both run only on the Win95/98/NT platforms. [CL]
[Back to Contents]

The ICYouSee Guide to the World Wide Web
http://www.ithaca.edu/library/Training/ICYouSee.html
Reference librarian John Henderson, of the Ithaca College Library, is the creator of this site designed for self-guided training of the World Wide Web. The content of the ICYouSee Guide is arranged around seven fundamental questions about the Web, such as "What can you do on the Web that is actually useful?," "What went wrong? or Why did it do that?," and "How can you create a Webpage for yourself?" The glossary section ("What do they mean by that?") provides easy-to-understand explanations in a question and answer format to over 120 Web-related terms. The section that answers how to find anything on the Web is an annotated guide to Internet search tools. The "What went wrong?" section is a problem solving guide to some common situations that users may encounter. [AG]
[Back to Contents]

Sherlock & the Internet Scout Project [MAC OS 8.5, StuffIt Expander]
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/sherlock/InternetScout.sit
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/sherlock/InternetScout.sit.hqx
http://www.apple.com/sherlock/plugins.html
With the release of MAC OS 8.5, Apple Computer introduces a new search technology called Sherlock. In addition to the standard Mac OS "Find" functionality and an expanded search-by-content feature, Sherlock includes the ability to search multiple Internet databases without opening a browser. Enhancing this new capability is a plug-in architecture that allows any site to provide access to their search engine via Sherlock. The Internet Scout Project has built a Sherlock plug-in that searches the Signpost database of previous Scout Reports and sends the annotations directly to your desktop. [PMS]
[Back to Contents]

Volume 2, Number 24, October 13, 1995
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/archive/.html
AgDB
http://www.agnic.nal.usda.gov/agdb/
The National Agricultural Library's Directory of Agriculture-Related Databases, Datasets, and Information Systems, otherwise known as AgDB, was a prototype project when we first reviewed it. In the intervening years, it has graduated from the prototype stage and now offers links to more than 1,000 information resources. Users can browse all of the AgDB metadata records through an alphabetical list arranged by resource name and search their full text with a keyword index and by AGRICOLA (described in the Scout Report for July 24, 1998) Subject Category Code. New metadata record additions can be traced via the What's New page. [MD]
[Back to Contents]

The single phrase below is the copyright notice to be used when reproducing any portion of this report, in any format.

From the Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-1998.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/

The paragraph below is the copyright notice to be used when reproducing the entire report, in any format.

Copyright Susan Calcari and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, 1994-1998. The Internet Scout Project (http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/), located in the Computer Sciences Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, provides information about the Internet to the U.S. research and education community under a grant from the National Science Foundation, number NCR-9712163. The Government has certain rights in this material. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of the entire Scout Report provided this paragraph, including the copyright notice, is preserved on all copies.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, or the National Science Foundation.

The Scout Report (ISSN 1092-3861) is published weekly by Internet Scout

Susan Calcari
Michael de Nie
Travis Koplow
Aimee D. Glassel
Todd Hanson
Sheilah Harrington
Kathryn Harris
Christopher Lukas
Dave Mayer
Andrew Osmond
Laura X. Payne
Jeannine Ramsey
Mike Roszkowski
Paul M Schwartz
Debra Shapiro
Geraldine Wanserski
Megan Waters
Amy Tracy Wells
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
--
Managing Editor
Editor
Production Editor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor
Contributor

Scout Report and Scout Report HTML Subscription Instructions

To receive the electronic mail version of the Scout Report each week, join the scout-report mailing list. This is the only mail you will receive from this list. Unsubscribing from the scout-report list can also be done at this site.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/lists/
To receive the Scout Report in HTML format for local viewing and posting, subscribe to the scout-report-html mailing list, used exclusively to distribute the Scout Report in HTML format once a week. Unsubscribing from the scout-report list can also be done at this site.
http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/lists/